Kentucky Speedway loses NASCAR Cup Series race. Track offering ticket refunds.
After two decades, Kentucky Speedway is losing its status as a NASCAR track.
In a statement posted on the Kentucky Speedway Website on Tuesday evening, track General Manager Mark Simendinger formally announced the end of NASCAR racing in Sparta.
“Of course, we’re disappointed the Bluegrass State is not on NASCAR’s schedule for 2021, as the past two decades have been filled with memorable moments that will last a lifetime,” Simendinger said in the statement. “This has been a tough year for so many, but there are still wild adventures ahead.
“We will evolve into a multi-use rental complex and also seek additional entrepreneurial prospects. Kentucky Speedway is open for business, and we have the potential to host special events, commercial television production, music festivals, other racing series and stand-alone RV rallies and camping events.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi and FOX Sports motorsports reporter Bob Pockrass each tweeted that NASCAR had confirmed that both Kentucky and Chicagoland Speedway will not be on the 2021 Cup Series schedule.
It appears that there will be no NASCAR-sanctioned, national touring series events at either Kentucky Speedway nor Chicagoland moving forward.
In addition to the NASCAR Cup Series since 2011, Kentucky Speedway has played host to Xfinity Series races since 2001 and truck series events since 2000.
Kentucky Speedway’s Cup Series race, The Quaker State 400 Presented by Walmart, is moving — sponsorship intact — to Atlanta Motor Speedway, that track announced.
It will be a return of that Cup date to the Georgia track. When Kentucky Speedway got its Cup race in 2011, it was moved from Atlanta Motor Speedway.
NASCAR officially announced its 2021 Cup Series schedule on Wednesday.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear reacted to the news during his daily media briefing on Wednesday.
“Obviously, it is a great disappointment,” the governor said. “That is an incredible event. I’m personally disappointed because I worked with NASCAR to become one of the first locations that they could race in after the suspension for COVID. I certainly hope that they reconsider, that this is a one year or even less change. That speedway is an important economic driver to not only that area of Kentucky but all Kentucky and, hey, our Kentuckians enjoy going to those races.
“So, we’re going to do everything we can on our end to encourage a return. Also want to get more information on the whys. We’ve certainly been investing tens of millions of dollars if not more in infrastructure over the years to support that track. And it would be pretty disappointing that we make all of those investments to support one of these races and we not have it in the future.”
On the Kentucky Speedway Website (kentuckyspeedway.com) Wednesday morning, a message was directed to fans who “have a race account credit with us.” It directed such fans to complete a ticket exchange form where full refunds were available.
Since no fans were allowed for the 2020 NASCAR races held at Kentucky Speedway due to coronavirus containment efforts, a large number of fans probably had rolled over their credits for this year to purchase tickets in 2021.
Kentucky Speedway opened in 2000 on what had been Gallatin County farm land. It was built at a cost of $152 million by an investors group fronted by former Turfway Park owner Jerry Carroll.
In spite of drawing large crowds for lower-tier NASCAR events and vigorous public lobbying from Carroll, the original Kentucky Speedway ownership group was never able to land a coveted Cup Series race.
Kentucky Speedway filed an anti-trust suit against NASCAR and the International Speedway Corp. in 2005 seeking to force the stock car racing governing body to award a Cup date to the commonwealth.
That lawsuit was dismissed in U.S. federal court in January 2008. In May of that year, Carroll and the original investors sold Kentucky Speedway to Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports, Inc.
It took three years, but in 2011 SMI moved one of its Cup Series dates from Atlanta to Kentucky. As part of the arrival of Cup racing in the commonwealth, Smith expanded the grandstands at the Sparta racetrack from a capacity of some 66,000 to around 106,000.
Yet from the start, Kentucky Speedway’s Cup Series involvement seemed star-crossed.
Enthusiasm for the first Cup race at Kentucky Speedway was robust. Even at 106,000 grandstand seats, the first Quaker State 400 was a sellout.
That positive turned into a major negative, however, when the Kentucky Speedway parking plan failed catastrophically on race day. The result was a massive traffic jam that backed up onto Interstate-71 for miles and miles and miles.
Thousands of fans who had paid for tickets never made it to the track to see Kyle Busch win the inaugural Quaker State 400.
That experience left a bad taste with many fans. Kentucky Speedway never again came close to selling out a Cup race.
Over 10 years, the Cup Series racing in Sparta was dominated by three drivers. Brad Keselowski won the Quaker State 400 three times with Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. each winning twice.
In recent years, mile-and-a-half tri-ovals such as Kentucky Speedway began to lose favor with some NASCAR fans. A perception grew that the racing at such venues was not consistently entertaining.
Interestingly, the final two Cup Series races held at Kentucky yielded two of the most entertaining NASCAR finishes in years.
In 2019, Kurt Busch out-dueled his younger brother Kyle in a paint-trading, green-white-checkers shootout to claim victory.
This year’s Quaker State 400 saw rookie Cole Custer make a daring four-wide pass for the lead going into the final lap and then hold on to win.
Apparently, business currents that emerged in recent months conspired to work against Kentucky Speedway.
Atlanta Motor Speedway has released renderings of a $1 billion casino complex. The plans call for a hotel, condos, restaurants and maybe even a theme park and concert venue to be built. Speculation is that Speedway Motorsports wants two races back at Atlanta as part of the hoped-for development.
Meanwhile, Dover Motorsports, the company that owns Dover International Speedway, announced this year it was moving one of its Cup races from Delaware to Nashville Superspeedway in 2021.
With Cup races already at Bristol in Tennessee, plus Indianapolis and Michigan and with Nashville coming back to the circuit, the geographic footprint that Kentucky Speedway drew from had become crowded.
So there will be no more NASCAR racing in Kentucky.
“Change is sometimes hard,” Simendinger said in the Kentucky Speedway statement, “but I’m looking forward to the many opportunities that lie ahead for our facility.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2020 at 6:02 PM.
